We broke Craig, but all holes filled!

Poor "oranges" they worked their arse's off filling all the holes on one final push and one long day! They finished in the dark, Craig said the next day that we had broken him.

How many "oranges" none working though as should be wearing high vis vests and helmets!

Here is Rich playing with his vibrator...

Plastic chair in place already to take in the view!

We now have a flat space again and Irene and Jose came yesterday to draw nice little blue lines. The thin blue line is a marker for the inside wall of cement that we have to now make as a base wall for the straw bales to sit on. We will be collecting wooden shuttering this week as the cement will be mixed again next Tuesday.

I think you can now make out the layout of the rooms. This closest corner is the kitchen with the curved wall of the dining room, then open plan to the lounge. The small room in the far outer corner is the bedroom. Behind that the bathroom, with a walk in closet. Off the kitchen we will have a larder. With a wooden porch out the front and small internal courtyard at the back I really think this little house will keep me busy and happy for a few years to come.

Simon the joiner and good mate is leaving the UK on the 15th December so less than 3 weeks and the timber frame will be started. He is bring over all his tools which will save us alot of money and behind him will be our horse trailer.

Metal in the holes!

Holes all dug and now time to make the metal boxes that are designed to hold the cement together.

Long lengths collected by Rich in the big trailer and then walked up the hill by Oranges, Craig and I decided we would use the Nissan for our lengths cause we can.

Happy "oranges" although its like a change gang!

I had 2 meetings this week with Jose the architect, he is such a great guy he puts me on a high each visit. He came over to The Orange House as we needed the internet to translate and look at pictures of materials needed.

I had a print out of our plans and the materials list from Irene architect, we had started to price equipment needed, timber etc. The cost of some plastic membrane was around £650 for the roof, within a few mins he had scribbled through my list and plans and said "nope we ain't using that, nay forget that" I sat with a massive grin on my face and saw the costs of the materials drop by 50%, happy day!

The second meeting was with Javier who will be our building materials guy, no speaking English so with my crap Spanish I think I will be getting the cement and some water on Monday around 11am.

Below is the cement mixer arriving on site, thanks to the lovely Phil again for the "rent" of this machine. I have no idea how many loads this will take to fill the holes but it will be alot...........

I know I sound horrible shouting at poor Rich, like a bloody fish wife!

Some big holes in the ground!

Phil came back and dug out between the white lines, more earth moved onto the front so we have a slightly bigger piece of hillside to perch on!

Here is a photo of Mummy Orange standing in the kitchen, she was not too happy balancing on an old pallet to get across the gap! Bless her ;0)

"please don't make me walk the plank!"

Holes in the gound, how exciting!

Rich bought half of the metal this week and has started to make some boxes to place into the holes, I will be contacting various people tomorrow to try and pin people down with prices for various materials.

We do have a bit of a deadline now as our Joiner leaves Bristol to drive over with my horse box on the 9th December. I didn't want a timescale to work to but it as made Rich happy that things are starting to move along.